354 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



temperate forms eventually took complete possession of the 

 Mediterranean region. All these changes came about in a 

 gradual manner, and hence each zone of latitude became in 

 succession the head-quarters of the arctic and northern fauna and 

 flora in their advance towards the south. Thus Palaeolithic man 

 must have hunted the reindeer in Southern England, Belgium, 

 and Northern France, for many generations before the increasing 

 severity of the climate compelled both to retreat. Step by step, 

 however, man was driven south ; England and Belgium were 

 deserted — perhaps even Germany, down to the foot of the Alps, 

 was left unoccupied — until at last the Palaeolithic race or races 

 reached the south of France. It was at this stage that the 

 mammoth entered Spain and Italy, the glutton lived on the shores 

 of the Mediterranean, marmots frequented the low grounds at the 

 base of the Northern Apennines, and pikas ranged the coast- 

 lands of Corsica and Sardinia. In the low grounds of Aquitaine 

 the reindeer roamed in great herds, and the musk-sheep, the 

 glutton, the marmot, and other animals of northern or alpine 

 habitats, were its congeners there. How far north the arctic 

 fauna ranged during the climax of the last glacial epoch can 

 only be conjectured. The reindeer were probably at that time 

 summer visitors only in Northern France. England, covered 

 for the most part with ice and snow, and washed upon its 

 southern shores by the sea, was probably never reached by them. 

 The Palaeolithic population of Europe would be confined to 

 the more southern parts of the Continent ; but the hunters of 

 Aquitaine may have followed the reindeer in their summer 

 migrations to the north. 



.At last the glacial epoch reached its meridian, and the 

 severity of the winters began to abate. Gradually the vast ice- 

 fields of the north melted away, and the glaciers of the Pyre- 

 nees, the Alps, and other mountain-ranges, slowly shrank up 

 their valleys. At or about this time, or it may have been 

 somewhat earlier, the land -connections between Europe and 

 Africa disappeared, and the Mediterranean, in some places at 

 least, advanced upon what is now land. Traces of submergence, 



